


Yesterday's Paper

by beaubete



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Infidelity, M/M, Pining, Substitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 15:47:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1434073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubete/pseuds/beaubete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s something about Jim [and it’s not just the name] that reminds him [maybe it’s the dead eyes].</p><p>Q grieves a thing that wasn't romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yesterday's Paper

**Author's Note:**

> A brief meandering into Bondlock territory in the only way I can do it: by making everyone as miserable and hurt as possible. This one was inspired by the references to "the other one" in S3 of Sherlock and plays with Q as the third Holmes brother.

If he looks between the words, between the black ink dots that spell out the bridge of a nose and an eyelid drooping in laughter, if he lets his eyes go hazy and unfocused, he can still see pale skin smeared with stubble, thin over bluish veins that made his own look golden. If he watches the interviews, the news reports, he can still hear that lilting, mocking voice shushing him in his passion, can still feel the tingles scratching up the length of his spine when he laughed.

It wasn’t—he’d been distracted. He had. A long mission, and he’d been staring numbly at the screen of his phone in the coffee shop when Jim had joined him. It was a matter of seconds—tired eyes, hints of makeup, the elastic band peeking from his trousers—and he’d met the stranger’s eyes, tired and suddenly tired of waiting for. Waiting. Tired of waiting, because James was never—and Jim had smiled, introduced himself. IT—and oh, can I see your mobile? That’s the new Galaxy, isn’t it? Those things are grand, aren’t they?—and waiting for his girlfriend—Q’d scoffed, just a little bit—waiting for his girlfriend to finish her shift at the hospital. But—with fingertips across his knuckles as he returned the phone—those long shifts were killer, weren’t they? And Q had never pretended to be particularly nice. Jim had hummed around his cock in the toilets and looked up at him with such huge brown eyes and he’d gotten home to find “your date for lunch Thursday” programmed as a contact in his mobile with a smiley-faced text.

Thursday was a no-go. International terrorist plot on Thursday, and he’d mumbled some excuse into a sweaty shoulder Friday morning as the sun bleached his flat into an empty white wasteland in the early day. Jim was a walking stereotype, but he hadn’t whined the way Q expected, just spread his legs and asked for more and let him fall, let him nuzzle against his throat and reminded him not to leave love bites. The girlfriend wouldn’t notice, Jim assured him, she was a virgin, she had a cat and a jumper with unicorns on it and a crush on a man that came to visit her at work. It was why he needed—tall, thin, and dark was his type, Jim had said, and even later Q had agreed. Jim knew what he wanted very well.

It was a habit. Q’s flat, usually, sometimes hotels, on one notable occasion surrounded by crochet doilies and staring photos of cats and he’d laughed and laughed because James was on holiday, had taken some girl on holiday, and heartbreak made him cruel. Because James had touched his hand and smiled and disappeared with a Bosnian diplomat’s daughter as if he didn’t see—and Q shook under Jim’s punishing thrusts, whimpering with his face pressed in the nap of a cheap velvet sofa cushion, crying names that sounded almost right with Jim’s fingertips grinding tight bruises across his hipbone. And Jim had murmured a name against the nape of his neck with too many syllables to fit the false name Q had given him, murmured something sibilant and glottal that had curled its claws around a lifetime’s inferiority complex until he soothed it down.

They didn’t talk about it. Q was safe—safe as safe, safe as houses, never brought his work home with him and never, ever said a word—and Jim took care not to slip again, even when Q had him on his back and three fingers up his arse; they could be the best of friends, of friends with benefits and not a single truth between them they were willing to acknowledge, so long as mouths were closed with fingers and cocks and lips and tongues and eyes were shut tight. No one noticed. No one knew.

And if he looks at the blobs of ink that form the familiar curl of a lip, paper spread across his desk and James outside telling everyone to leave him be, that he’s suffered a personal loss—false genius, with the same curls and pale eyes they’d both inherited from Daddy, lit from within by Mummy’s genius—he can almost hear the whispered goodbye left against his skin. It hadn’t been for him.


End file.
